From Breakup To Better Than Ever: How 2 Marriage Therapists Reclaimed Their Relationship Post-Breakup

After coming back together after a short, but painful breakup, Joree and Dr. John consciously adopted daily and weekly habits and tools to strengthen their relationship. While they had always put time and attention into their relationship, it didn’t always result in the connection or alignment that both needed to feel seen, heard, validated or fulfilled. In this episode, they go into detail, sharing what they did differently than before to consciously step towards one another in an effort to demonstrate love, commitment, and dedication to the relationship. Once again (as in Season 5, Episode 1), they share very vulnerable & honest examples & insights into how two marriage therapists healed in the hopes that they can inspire you to create shifts in your relationship. Strong relationships are foundational to your happiness & health. Learn how to adopt the top relational tools and mindsets so that you too can thrive in your partnership.

If you’d like to listen to this podcast episode by two outstanding marriage therapists, click the link here to go to Apple Podcasts.

The transcript from the show is shared below if you’d prefer to read through this poignant and powerful show.

From Breakup To Better Than Ever: How 2 Marriage Therapists Reclaimed Their Relationship Post-Breakup  Transcript

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: [00:00:00] Hey, welcome back. This is Joree Rose with Journey Forward with Joree Rose, and I am doing a joint podcast episode with my fiancée, 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: This is Dr. John with the Evolved Caveman Podcast. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And we are launching this fourth season of both of our podcasts with a joint conversation to very vulnerably and honestly to the extent that fully feels appropriate to share this publicly.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Our journey of how we Have healed our relationship after a hard year of breakup and now not just healed but really the best that we’ve ever been in partnership with one another. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Yeah, after eight years together, and I think this is going to be a little bit tricky and difficult. We’ve tried recording this a couple [00:01:00] times before and said, let’s wait a little bit longer.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Yeah, we got a little bit triggered there, but that was a couple of months ago and we’ve come so far, even since then. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: One, I think it’s hard to talk about. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: It’s hard shit. It’s hard to talk about. It’s, and I know during our breakup, we disappointed a whole lot of people because they were like, if you guys can’t figure this relationship stuff out, how are we supposed to, because we’ve been educated, trained, we teach this, we guide the, we’ve been doing this professionally for so many years.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And I just want to remind everyone doing the work professionally does not always mean you can engage in it personally, because it’s a different set of tools to be able to put it to use in the most vulnerable and real relationships. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And I think that, one of the things that this pointed out was You know, that line from Terry real really is true of, most relationships don’t end because of something major, like a transgression.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Most relationships and death [00:02:00] by a thousand paper cuts, which is the accumulation of those little hurts, annoyances and irritations, 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: right? And the other truism by Terry real, that relationships are a dance of harmony, disharmony and repair. And I think for you and I, we were getting stuck in the harmony and disharmony part and weren’t having effective repair to get out of that cycle and I feel like we’ve done it.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Yeah. I do too. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: So I think we can take our listeners back perhaps about a year because that really seemed to be the start of the downward spiral that we got stuck in. And I do want to say that as John pointed out, this was not just one issue that led to a breakup for us. But in addition to what we were struggling with each other, we soon began to realize how much of what our struggles were a function of [00:03:00] the stuff that we had unhealed, perhaps from our marriages and childhoods.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: That was really getting in the way of showing up vulnerably, authentically communicating in a way that felt safe. And so as we share our story there’s layers to all of this, and I hope we get to all of those. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: I think there’s three layers, right? There’s what happened in early childhood and how that impacts us, and this is the general us, all of us.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And then there’s what’s happened in past relationships that’s traumatized you or left a mark on you, and then there’s this current relationship. And I think that question that we would occasionally ask each other does this really have to do with me? Or is this about your last relationship or is this about your childhood is a really relevant and powerful question, because those are really difficult to disentangle sometimes and we’re talking about the few minutes when you’re at your very worst when you’re most, most emotionally triggered.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: [00:04:00] And feeling shame, or feeling anger, or feeling sadness, or disconnection, or abandoned. That’s really what we’re talking about here. We’re not talking about the 99 percent of the time when you’re at your best, or relatively normal, relatively rational. We’re talking about your most emotional state. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Yeah. And the stories that we tell ourselves, right?

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: I think you and I, and everyone, has these narratives that we believe as capital T Truths. And as long as we are holding onto those narratives as truth, it’s preventing us from connecting. Do you want to start with what happened with us last summer, or do you want to go back to what our narratives were from when we were young?

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: I can go back to when I was young and some of the things that happened that I realized that were impacting me in this relationship. And one of the things that I really struggled with was your travel, travel without me. And I realized that I would get really triggered when you travel [00:05:00] and it seemed disproportionate.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And it also would trigger things in me like I don’t know, I guess it was abandonment fears. And I had to look back to my childhood and realize there was several times that my parents would leave to go to the other side of the world, Russia, Europe, wherever, for some length of time, three or four weeks.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And I was left at home with, a 20 year old babysitter. And I think the first one I was like maybe four or five and my sister was six. And, some disturbing things happened during some of those. vacations of my parents that really left a mark on me. And one, I can share that, I think I was six.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: My sister wanted to go to a movie. The babysitter took us to an R rated movie. I think it was the house down the lane or something, which is about I think it’s three or four couples go to this lake house, a biker gang comes by, breaks into the house, rapes all the women, kills all the men, kills most of the women.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And then one woman [00:06:00] survives. And then she, the whole movie is about her reclaiming her vengeance or claiming vengeance on this biker gang. To the point of nudity, one guy gets his dick cut off. Like to see this at six, I’m like, wow, this is not a safe world. And so when my parents leave, bad shit happens.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And so then when you would leave, I think I would get brought back to that age and that state. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Yeah. And that took us a couple years to even figure that out in recognizing. And I’m going to start with what some of my early stuff was that I think I brought into the relationship because I think maybe starting from these foundational narratives, not everyone recognizes in partnership, how pervasive they can be, especially like you said, when we’re triggered or we’re feeling highly sensitive and you and I are both highly sensitive, which I think is great.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Because we feel deeply and [00:07:00] we didn’t always have the best skill of navigating when we were both in that space at the same time. And I had a huge narrative around abandonment. It’s in my DNA, transgenerational trauma from my mom’s parents being killed in a car accident, my dad committing suicide, and believing that people leave.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And that wasn’t a fear in my life. That was an actual reality. So it wasn’t a fear based on what was a fear. And, but it was rooted in some, real life scenarios in which people did leave and coupled that with the belief that my emotion would push people away. And that part became really rooted when I was in high school when I was dating my ex husband when I was quite young, and it was very clear that I was told I was too much.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And so that led me [00:08:00] to believe that being myself when I was experiencing my emotions was too much for others and it would push them away and they would leave. So it’s these two fears combined. And what that looks like was an anxious attachment style. And so there would be times where I would feel insecure with something about you.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And I, I would feel cautious in how to express it because I was sensitive to not wanting to offend you or to not making you angry. Cause I knew how sensitive you are and was very careful to not say anything that would be hurtful. So on the one hand, it would limit my authenticity and communication. And on the other hand, if I did speak up, it would easily trigger.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Something in you in which Created an avoidant attachment style for you in which you would shut down And need some space which I interpreted that as abandonment 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: and that dynamic I think grew over time it grew more stronger and [00:09:00] was reinforced with these, I would say somewhat infrequent Disagreements over things or when you would say something and it would trigger you’d be like, aha.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: There it is Right. It doesn’t take much in other words to reinforce these dynamics If you’re hyper aware or looking for them. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And this anxious avoidant dance became a pattern for a bit, not frequently, but, and really hard. And the more we both looked into this and realized how pervasive this is for many couples, there was some comfort in saying, okay, at least we know what’s going on here, but shit, what do we do about this?

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Because it was this self fulfilling cycle. We would trigger each other. The more anxious I got, the more you needed space. The more you needed space, the more anxious I got. And That went on for quite some time. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Yeah, and let me jump in there because I think this piece is really important. And I think it’s going to be really [00:10:00] illustrative for others.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: So we would get in a disagreement and I could hang in there for about 15 minutes or so in an emotionally charged conversation. And then I would start to get flooded. And when I would start to get flooded emotionally, I would shut down because in my head I’m thinking, Oh, don’t say anything that’s going to hurt Jory’s feelings in anger.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: So my motivation was to protect you. And that love is true. And on the other hand, to you, it was, and it looked like defensiveness and stonewalling and shutting down. So to you, it felt like I’m withdrawing. It felt like abandonment, which triggered your anxious attachment style to pursue me more whether physically or verbally.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And I’m trying to get space and distance to calm myself down. And we tried different things like, honey, I’m getting triggered. Give me 20 minutes and I’ll be back. And. So we tried different things to interrupt this cycle and weren’t having a whole lot of success. But one of the [00:11:00] things I realized in those moments is, at the very height of it, for a few minutes, maybe a few seconds, I was overwhelmed by shame.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Which, if you had asked me, five years ago, do you ever feel shame, I would have been like, No. And how I identified that shame was that I would hear thoughts in my head. I would get overwhelmed. I was angry. Then I would get sad. And then I would hear thoughts like, Oh, she’d be better off without me.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Or I’m no good at this relationship stuff. Or I should just be alone, which is all. The belief that I am unworthy of love, connection, and belonging. And so then I had to look at my own shame and do my work around that. And then I think the other important piece here was that one of the big ahas you had was that attachment, the anxious attachment style that you’ve had.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Isn’t merely an anxious attachment style. Do you want to go into [00:12:00] that? 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Yeah And that anxious attachment style I would show up in ways that to be honest I was really embarrassed by because it brought out a part of me that felt really Unevolved or unaware and 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: or emotional? 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Yeah, but in the moments those were judgments I had on myself.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Like why can’t I get my shit together? What’s wrong with me? I Why can’t I regulate and? I think we eventually got to understanding that what we were each seeking, and I’ll get back to the other piece you were mentioning in a second, but this is important as well. We were both seeking regulation. We were both flooded.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: We were both overwhelmed. You were seeking regulation through distance and alone time and space. And I was seeking regulation through connection. And they were competing needs And that was such a challenge because these needs that we each had which were valid real and true Were in [00:13:00] competition with each other and neither one of us could get 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: our needs met And 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: I generally felt like your avoidance won out over my anxious 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: I think that was true for a period of time 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: for a period of time and then And really trying to understand okay, what’s really going on here?

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: I had this realization, Oh shit, this isn’t just anxious attachment. My reaction is so strong because it was actually a trauma response and. When we feel a trauma response, we’re not being logical. We’re not being rational. The nervous system is dysregulated. That’s one of the ways that I like to define trauma is dysregulation of the nervous system by even a trigger that may not have anything to do with what’s actually happening, but the mind is perceiving that as this is fear self protect.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: This is an unsafe situation. And when I was able to recognize this is more than just [00:14:00] me being anxious and me freaking out and, grasping and clinging for connection. And I was able to sit with this. Awareness of this is a trauma response. What does that do for you? 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: When I think so, because what you were feeling in those moments, if I may, was panic.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: It 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: was, it was, it’s the most intense emotion I’ve ever seen out of you at times. And I think flipping it from an anxious attachment style in my head to a trauma response. As soon as you said that, I was like, Oh, snap. Holy shit, that’s absolutely true, and that means I’ve got to pull my head out of my ass and stop my avoidant attachment style and put my needs second in order to reassure you first.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And I think that, so that series of realizations really helped us to dismantle that pretty dangerous dynamic we were in. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Yeah. Very much it took us a while to get there. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Yeah. Seven years. [00:15:00] 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: But we did it a 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: lifetime because one of the things that enters into this for me is that I didn’t believe that change was possible in that withdrawal, that avoidance, that overwhelm, that shutdown, that stonewalling because in myself, I didn’t think change.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: I didn’t think I could change that because I’ve never been able to change that. And it’s something that I’ve tried for decades to change. And so first, the first step I had to make was No, stop that. That’s bullshit. You can change this. You need to change this. Let’s work on it. And let’s believe change is possible because that’s got to be the first step for any of this stuff, right?

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: If you don’t believe change is possible, guess what? It ain’t possible. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And that’s, ultimately at the root of one of the questions, a lot of our clients ask us is how do I know I should stay in this relationship or not? And we’ve always answered if your partner has a growth mindset, there’s hope for anything.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: If there’s a fixed mindset, it’s going to be suck. And, 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: But on that point, [00:16:00] if I can interrupt there on that point. Those fixed or growth mindsets are very specific and context specific. So you might have a growth mindset about a bunch of relationship skills, and then a fixed mindset about one little piece of yourself.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: So just be aware as you’re looking for these in yourself, they can be, they’re specific. They’re not across the board. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: So these patterns, we would get into this anxious avoidance dance. I would have this fear of my own emotions, pushing John away. I would sometimes limit what I shared and would hold back.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And then at the same time, while I had this fear, like when, he brings up my travel, I also was fiercely independent in many ways. And so I was demonstrating this oxymoron of all I want is this deep connection, but I also need independence. And that was something for many years I wasn’t able to hear from you.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And [00:17:00] I realized at some point what was going on for me there was I had grown up being so dependent on my mom and so dependent on my ex husband that to me what I was experiencing was growth. And I wanted you as my partner to be proud of my growth, and I couldn’t see that my growth in this one area and my need to continue to demonstrate that growth was hurting you.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And I think I was proud for a period of time, but the more the travel hurt me because there was things like where you were traveling with your ex husband, which to me was, embarrassing, hurtful, disrespectful. It was awful. Like I, I just couldn’t conceive of it. And so then the, yeah I couldn’t celebrate your growth anymore because it came at such a cost to me personally.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And I was looking at it from the lens of, look, what a evolved divorce I have that as co parents, they can do these things for [00:18:00] my daughters. And I wasn’t able to hear you. And that was one of the biggest frustrations you had with me, was I, and I don’t think I’d ever thought of myself as defensive.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And yet I was being very defensive in my own righteousness around, but what I’m doing is okay without really, truly hearing you. And I’m so sorry for that. Cause I know you tried a very long time. And that awareness was big for me of, oh shit, if I’m not listening to this, what else am I not hearing from him?

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Yeah. And I think the not feeling heard was a consistent theme in a few issues. And after a while and interrupting was one of the issues whether you or your daughters, and after a while of being interrupted so frequently and so pervasively, I just stopped sharing stories at the dinner table.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: I was just like, fuck it. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: What’s the point? I’m being interrupted repeatedly. I brought it up repeatedly. Nobody’s hearing [00:19:00] me. I’m just going to stop. I don’t have that much, I don’t have that great a need to share what I’m wanting to share. I’ll just shut up. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Yeah. So as you said in the beginning, some of these things were small paper cuts that grew over time, which is really ironic.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Cause I remember when we first started dating and things were absolute perfection and bliss for so long, I remember asking the question at what point do relationships start building resentment? Cause I couldn’t conceive at that time early on us ever getting to that place, which was why it was so painful to see that we were there.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And. We would, for many years maybe these patterns came up once or twice a year, but then there seemed to be this accumulation of them that sped up over more recent years, which I think brings us to last summer in which there was a series of unrelated events that all at the same time came to a threshold.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Do you wanna share what, maybe for you, what some of those [00:20:00] were? 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Refresh my memory. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: COVID, you had your back surgery. Oh, okay, 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Yeah. Okay, sorry, so you’re going there. So yeah, so COVID our client load increased, the needs of our clients increased I was in incredible pain due to spinal stenosis where the nerves in my spine were being impinged, which led to random nerve pain, which was like an 11 on a 10 point scale.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Like it would hit me and I would just drop to the floor and look for the nearest place to lie down. So I had that, I had spinal surgery day after my birthday, I think that was 2020 during the height of COVID then had to recover from that. My oldest daughter was splitting time between me and my ex wife.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Your youngest daughter. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Sorry, my youngest daughter and her being over at her mother’s house was almost every time a source of tears and crying and pain and suffering, and when she came back, when she was there, I would get texts [00:21:00] saying, I can’t take it anymore, I hate it here. When she would come back, it would be an unloading, she would be depressed, and it led to a suicide attempt at her mom’s house a year later. And so I think, between those three things my mood dipped and I became increasingly depressed, which only added to irritability. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: The other thing that impacted was then you had her 100 percent of the time I had my kids about 80 percent of the time this was a blessing, 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: but also,

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: but it was hard on our relationship.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And we’ve always been, put the kids first 100 percent in support of that. And it was 100 percent the right thing. And it created less time for us. And there were times where, normally we’d see each other every other day, at least there were times where it could be over a week, two weeks.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: That we wouldn’t see each other and that I know is really taxing because it Makes us both irritable, but I also know for you, you get self protective during that time apart, so when we would reconnect, it was a little bit of [00:22:00] a hard re entry to, to connect with each other. And for me, I know I was going through, immense amount of anticipatory grief last summer as, my oldest was going off to college and my youngest was leaving for a semester.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And so this fear of abandonment was really heightened for me as they were both leaving the same week. And so I knew that was in my horizon. So it was a perfect storm of these patterns that had accumulated over time that were unsuccessful in our resolution of them, combined with these life circumstances that were preventing us to truly connect.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And so we ended up going to Italy last summer, which we were just talking the other day. I still look back on that trip really fondly. I, even though there was some hard moments at the end that created really big disconnection, luckily that doesn’t cloud. my vision or memory of that trip because it still was magical and all the ways that Italy can be, but [00:23:00] we had a handful of disconnects that we just couldn’t recover from.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And it, I don’t even think the details are worth going into because they’re so ridiculous, but it was, that was the point we were at where the most ridiculous thing was enacting this pattern that at this point had become more ingrained. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Yeah. And I think, some of those became the straw that broke the camel’s back in my mind.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Yeah, and so we come home from Italy and I say that I want to go to couples therapy. And that was really triggering for you? What was coming up for you when that was? I suggested that was really 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: difficult. I, I think part of it was, the trauma that I have from trying to do couples therapy with my ex-wife.

. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And, trying to do couples therapy with someone who has some narcissistic tendencies is not a good idea because of the gaslighting, the distortion, the lying. And I think that’s also why, the pattern of not being heard in our relationship was. More triggering for me than maybe it should have been, I don’t know, but it was a [00:24:00] pattern of things that I had, experienced in my prior relationship.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: But I think because I was depressed and over focused on the negative, I remember he asked, first session asked, what’d you fall in love with about jewelry? And I just 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: was like, word 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: vomit, like bleh, here’s all this stuff that I’m bugging, that’s bugging the shit out of me. And I was like, it was like, oh.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: That’s a problem. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: I’m going to be, self deprecating in my own tendencies right now, but one of the, after I you really were like resistant for therapy and you gave me these criteria of the therapist we had to go to. And I actually found someone who met like really high standards of criteria, training, PhD, but like I found the guy and it was, unfortunately it was like an hour drive away, which I remember from, my marriage going to couples therapy.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Coming home on the same car afterwards can be a really painful experience, let alone when you have an hour drive together. But, so we’re sitting in the lobby and we’re going to paint this picture because 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Oh, this was hilarious. Okay, 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: so I think he’s [00:25:00] quite particular about things and, on a good day, when John makes fun of my peculiarities of how I like things organized, I can really roll with it.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And so can he, but when we’re not in a good space, those little things become big. So we’re sitting in the lobby waiting. I know it’s tense. I can feel John being so uncomfortable. And I’m sitting in the chair of the waiting room, and across the room, there was a lamp. And the lampshade seam was facing out into the room versus having the seam be in the back.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: So I couldn’t see it. So me being, John likes to joke a little OCD at times I get up and I fix the lampshade to turn the seam to the back, and as soon as I do it, I’m like, ah, fuck , this is gonna be brought up in therapy about how I’m ocd. I’m like, I just gave him fuel for the fire. Sure enough, seconds 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: before 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: sure enough we get into the therapy [00:26:00] session and.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: This very kind, soft, broken male therapist just says, what is it you loved about this person to make you want to be with them? What do you like about your partner? And John just started ripping into me 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: and I couldn’t access it. Yeah. And one of the, one of 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: The lamp stayed in the waiting room and it was so painful for me.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And it was a two hour session that after, seven years together, here we were and he couldn’t. Find one thing about why he was happy to be with me. And to me, that was a reflection of the lens he was looking through was so negative. He couldn’t access the good. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Absolutely. Yeah. And so I think, that was, so then, after that, I tried to break up several times with you.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Yeah, you broke up with me the next day over the phone. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Yeah. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And that was, my kids had been gone for just a week. And so the timing for me was like, see, there’s abandonment, that’s what happens, right? It [00:27:00] confirmed my deepest fears. And the day after that, you came over and we had this talk in which some of your own realizations of, I think some of the avoidant behavior in the shutdown.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: So we quickly got back together, though I did take my ring off, but that was end of September. And so from September till January. Was this on again, off again, on again, off again, pain. It was we kept trying, and we just couldn’t quite get there.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Until we finally broke up, seemingly for good. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: January 22nd. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And then we had two months apart, and those two months were Really difficult. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: We also sucked at being broken up. I don’t think we went more than five days without some sort of communication. We kept making [00:28:00] excuses, I would say, to see each other.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: I would tell you I had to bring you stuff and we’d end up sitting in the car at the parking lot of Pete’s because I didn’t trust either one of us to be at each other’s home because we clearly were still in love. It was obvious that the love was never 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: in question. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: No, and I was just going to say that’s the thing here we, I knew this wasn’t about love, and that’s what made it so fucking hard, was, I knew we loved each other, and On that final breakup day, that was one of my most anxious trauma reactions of nearly having a panic attack at the side of the car.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And I’m so embarrassed to think back to why couldn’t I pull my shit together? Hey, I loved you so much. I just couldn’t fathom my life without you. And yet. Interestingly enough, I had this deep knowing in my gut that it wasn’t over, like I had this deep knowing [00:29:00] we would somehow get back together, but in my logical, rational mind, I had no idea what that path was.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: I couldn’t ever see what that path was going to be. I knew it wasn’t, it couldn’t be done. Like how could we not figure this out?

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Yeah, so I don’t know how much you want to go into the two months of being split up. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: It was a painful two months. We both dated other people with then added a whole nother level of trauma to us getting back together and hurt and pain. And I think ultimately, you realize I would say pretty quickly, because it was Valentine’s Day, the day after actually, that you texted me.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And, so it was really only about three and a half weeks after that, what seemingly was final breakup. Of acknowledging. Oh shit. What did I do? Like I This isn’t right and I was quite guarded at that [00:30:00] point Because I felt that this up and back had you know that enough itself was traumatizing for me I mean my regulation was so off and I didn’t know if I could trust you and I wanted to with all my heart because despite the pain all I ever wanted was to make this relationship work and So it took a couple of times of, slowly dipping our toe in the water, but then You brought something to our attention that could be helpful for us.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And this is where the story turns So when I go into the background there sure. Yeah, so I’ve 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: been I’ve been working with a client for about 10 years treatment resistant depression high anxiety Really slow movement. He’s had suicidal thoughts daily for the last 10 years at least. And occasionally I get frustrated with the slow [00:31:00] progress and so I’ll throw out a new idea.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And we’ve tried everything with this young man. Short of electroshock therapy. And I’d been doing research on psilocybin and treatment resistant depression. I’d done, and psilocybin’s magic mushrooms, for those of you who aren’t in the know. I had done mushrooms back in college. Found them to be amazing, just in terms of opening you up to new realities.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: The understanding I took away was that, everything in this world is interconnected, which is the opposite of depression, where you feel isolated and alone. I brought this up to him as a possibility, and he said, Yeah. So I said, great. There’s clinical trials all over California. Let’s get you into one.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And he was like, I couldn’t do that. My anxiety wouldn’t allow it, which I understand. I get that. So ultimately, to make a long story short his dad found a place to source mushrooms. We, I went to his house and sat him while he [00:32:00] had a journey. Since then he’s done it several times in the past year and a half.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And. The results have been pretty spectacular moods gone from a two to a six on a 10 point scale greater flexibility of thinking more open mindedness greater motivation. And he’s actually enjoying life at times, and anticipating in a positive sense, future events which never happened. So this was going on, and I brought this to you, and said, what do you think about this, in order to heal ourselves.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Thank you very much. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And, the research you’ve been sharing with me for quite some time is absolutely remarkable. One of the things that I know you’ve said is, psychiatrists don’t have a medicine in their tool cabinet as effective for healing depression, anxiety, trauma, as what even just one experience.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: With the psilocybin can do and so having never been someone who is into drugs or really experimented with [00:33:00] drugs myself My natural anxiety was clearly, present and I do want to back up just one short little bit that we didn’t mention Once we decided to get back together. We did go back to couples therapy And this was, to me, after having that first experience in which, you know it led off with a negative lens and quick shutdown.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: This was really the best commitment that John could have offered to me because it wasn’t just, a regular therapy session. It was two days. Of six hours each day at this couple’s home in Santa Cruz. So we went down there, stayed the weekend. And six hours a day of therapy is intense for anybody.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And we hadn’t quite yet built back our reservoir of positive emotion and connection a hundred percent. So it was still very difficult. But the fact that you were willing [00:34:00] and wanted and actually found the therapist and took that initiative. And sat there with me for those 12 hours, which at times were really hard.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: So thank you for that. But it was also when he says he wants to be with me and he’ll do anything. But that was a huge drop in my positive bucket of this man is willing to do what he can to commit to healing our relationship because prior, just the thought of going to therapy was overwhelming.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: That, that was a really powerful experience, but realized. And even though that therapy of those 12 hours was helpful, there was still some limitations to talk therapy, right? Because some of these traumas or these narrative or these wounds they’re deeply embedded. That is hard to access through language.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Yeah. And shout out to Charlie and Linda bloom and Santa Cruz. They were amazing, but you’re absolutely right. One of the [00:35:00] things that we experienced on a profound level, I think is there’s a limit to talk therapy. Yeah. Some of these hurts are pre verbal, some of them are in our DNA, or our cellular memory.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Especially, like trauma, for example. And how do you get at some of these wounds in a way that can help you to heal them effectively? 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Now Yeah this paved the path for psilocybin. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Yeah, and so when he suggested this, at this point, I was like, if it can heal the parts that we still feel stuck in, because now at this point, I was 100 percent committed to the relationship.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: I saw that you were committed. We just had now to get through the hurt. That talking sometimes was actually making it worse. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Re-triggering. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Yeah. And even as evidence that, now you and I are reporting this at the [00:36:00] last week of August. We tried doing this in June and we couldn’t even make an outline because even then it was still a little bit too triggering.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: So how are you doing right now? 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: I’m doing great. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Yeah, me too. So this is, in real time work. Still 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: it’s still difficult. Great. Might be overstating it, but I’m good. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And I think for me, I can name, the thoughts as they come up, I can recognize, oh, that was a really painful time.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: I can decide to go down the path of following the thought of the pain, but I’m not feeling any dysregulation in my system. I feel pretty grounded and centered, right? And I think that power to recognize that the thoughts are always going to be there. And you have choice of how much you want to engage in them, but from a nervous system regulation standpoint, I’m not feeling any flooding right now.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: I’m not feeling overwhelmed. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: I’m regulated. I’m grounded. I’m centered. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Yeah. So we decided to embark on [00:37:00] a journey, which was pretty anxiety provoking for me because I, had never really experienced that. And the unknown used to scare me. And I have to say it was one of the most absolutely profound experiences of my whole life to have that day together and what we were able to access and an unconscious nonverbal level, just eye contact, sitting with one another, recognizing our connection, the power of our connection, the strength of our love, seeing each other through the most strongest positive lens I think possible that one can see another. I 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: think one of the big realizations for me was recognizing the goddess within you.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: In all her glory and how I didn’t want to hold that energy back. [00:38:00] And I realized that I had been at some level holding that energy back and what a disservice that was. To you and your true essence. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Yeah. Thank you for that. That was, I remember that moment so clearly of that realization and I very quickly was able to recognize the reciprocity of the God in you.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And I think there was some piece that we were both holding each other back from truly expanding into. The full extension of the essence in which we are born with, that we know was there, that for whether it was our traumas, our childhood, our past relationships, these paper cuts, these wounds with one another was preventing that light to really shine.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And that day was a turning point for that in a massive way. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: I realized. That I had been holding you back at some level, not tremendously, I don’t think, but [00:39:00] I was not able to see that prior to that moment. And a lot of my hurt, a lot of my attachment to even what happened during our breakup, I think was an attachment to old stories where I didn’t want you doing or behaving a certain way.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And I was like, that’s not what you would do with a goddess. Yeah. It’s not appropriate at some level. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: So that day, I know the date, it was May 9th. I, that was the opening of a door that I didn’t see coming. I, and and we go back to the research on psilocybin and, it is said to not over, put too much time to put on it, but we experienced this.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: It’s like weeks or months of therapy in a day. And the thing was, those [00:40:00] realizations, those connections, those healings, that awareness we had of one another, the desire to uplift each other, to really Support each other’s highest good and, greatest intentions for how to show up in this world that didn’t ever go away.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Like it wasn’t a one and done from that day it, you and I have continued to see each other through that lens and hold that space for one another, both, our humanness as well as our God and goddessness around how do I support the energy and essence of this person I am so deeply in love with.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: When I remember there was research on psilocybin I saw several years ago that said, magic mushrooms changes your personality 10 years after taking them and I was like, holy shit, I have to read that that’s got to be bad. And I read it and what stayed 10 years later was people were more open minded and more flexible in their thinking and I was like, those are both [00:41:00] really good things.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And so the changes linger that the changes stay with you. I mean like the realization that all things are interconnected is massive. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Yeah and this has led down a pathway and for those who are listening who aren’t aware, but psilocybin has, gained so much momentum in the psychology and therapy world.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: It’s considered the fifth wave of psychotherapy. There’s a psychedelic renaissance occurring right now. The studies are proving to be very effective for the majority of people. Not everyone is the right candidate for this kind of therapy. Therapeutic work, but in anticipation of the legalization, which is pending in the next year or two, along with the legalization of MDMA, which is a man made drug that was originally used for couples therapy back in the seventies, because it decreases the defensiveness.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: It quiets down the amygdala, the part of the brain that gets triggered. So it allows you to have [00:42:00] conversation without. Fear of reactivity, defensiveness, and you are more open to hearing each other and to connecting and elicit positive emotions. In anticipation of the legalization of those substances, this actually helped us embark on getting certified in psychedelic assisted therapy, so when they do become legal, we can support people through a journey.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: In the integration of their experience, because we have experienced the depth and absolute profound impact of our own healing. And one of the things that I love in one of the research that we’ve come across is an image that shows what the brain is normally like in which there’s, defined schemas or the way in which we see things or the way that we.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: There’s lots of patterns 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: in the thinking. The 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: patterns. And the psilocybin disrupts those schemas, so you are now have all this new interconnectivity in the brain of the way you see the world. And that [00:43:00] openness is what we need to heal, right? As long as we were looking through the negative lens, you and I didn’t have a chance at healing.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: I think we would have gotten there eventually because I don’t really think either one of us ever wanted to be without the other. With the support of these medicines to open up our brain in a way that we’ve never been able to get to or stick with has been one of the most absolutely healing things that I’ve truly ever experienced.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And it’s not just been healing with each other, but, to be able to heal some childhood wounds or wounds from other, past relationships that the possibility for healing is huge. And. And also I think helped us realize this is another layer and level of the work that we are doing with our own clients.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And you and I have been doing actually more couples work together than we ever have, which [00:44:00] is so much fun. I love when we do this work together. Because A, You and I are so connected that we can read each other’s minds when we’re working with a couple to really know how to support them. But not only knowing what each other is going to say in anticipation of the how the other is going to show up, we compliment each other quite well in that space, but also recognizing shit.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: So much of the stuff that gets in the way of a really healthy partnership is all the shit you bring into it. The past relationships, the childhood, the stories, the insecurities, the anxieties, the fears. The narrative that prevent us from being really vulnerable, authentic, feeling safe, and that’s huge if we can help people and we already are like I know that we already are.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: My evidence of this conversation, giving people permission to recognize their own limitations, aren’t always their fault. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: One. And I think one of the points that bears [00:45:00] speaking, bears sharing is the information that you learn via. Psilocybin, and I imagine other psychedelics, is not merely cognitive. It is a felt knowing at the deepest sense of who you are.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: I don’t know how to explain it any better than that. But it’s like it changes the cellular memory in your body. It’s a felt sense. It’s an embodied knowing. It’s not merely cognitive, which is, I think, one of the biggest. And I think that’s one of the biggest issues that we have with therapy or that I have with therapy is it’s primarily cognitive.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And we know that most of our behavior is emotionally driven. And if those emotions are trauma informed. Cognition or thinking is somewhat limited and this top down approach. Trying to regulate your nervous system, which may or [00:46:00] may not be that successful.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And what we haven’t shared yet is this also opened the door to real spiritual healing and not just spiritual healing, but spiritual awakening.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Yeah. Yeah. And that continues to unfold and that has been an amazing journey to share in together. And the signs that we both have received and the way that the universe is connected with us in very clear and obvious ways has been extremely powerful. And I feel from a year ago to today, you and I are just on a different plane than we once were of our own self awareness, self compassion for the other, interconnectivity, acceptance.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: It’s seeing one another in its entirety without any judgment. That’s not, and that’s not to say that we still may not have disconnection, but they’re not as strong. They don’t last as long. They don’t go as [00:47:00] deep and we’re able to recover a lot faster. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: One of the big changes that I see us having made is the ability to hear one another non defensively.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Like I’ve never in my life felt so heard. And that is such a revolutionary game changer because and folks you’ve probably heard us talk about, the fact that two thirds of the issues in relationship are unresolvable, according to research that it’s just shit you fight about over and over, but there’s no resolution.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: There’s no way you can resolve it. If that’s the case, then either you got to find a new partner, which. Oh, by the way, you’ll have the same two thirds of issues that are unresolvable, or you’ve got to find some way to radically accept that this is the case and realize that maybe the best we can do in these situations is just to hear how our partner is seeing the situation and how it makes them [00:48:00] feel.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And there’s no fix to it. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: If 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: that’s the case, then being heard becomes monumental. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And this brings up, first of all I just want to say, I really got teared up when you said that and I’m so grateful you feel so heard. And I’ve always told you that I want to love you like no one ever has, and I, and now I really made you feel that way so I’m.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: I’m so happy for that. But one of the things, and I know we’ve got to wrap up in just a minute, but this is a really big, important piece of all of this, our ability to be non defensive and our hearing of one another allowed something major for me, which was. I had to learn how to get angry. I had to learn to tap into my anger and be able to express my anger because believe me, John did a lot of things that really got me angry but I was so afraid of sharing them for fear he’d leave [00:49:00] me.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And when I was able to access my anger without me being afraid of it and then share it, it was way out of my comfort zone. But he was able to receive it without defensiveness or reactivity, which gave me permission to continue to feel it and to honor it was real. I’d always pushed it down. I’d never been safe to express anger before in my life, and I had this big realization one day of, wow, if I can get angry at john and still love him and still want to be with him, then that must mean he could get really angry with me and still love me and still want to be with me.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And that thought. Was revolutionary for me, and I’m not saying it was easy, and there were a couple days you and I had actual screaming, I’ve never done that before, and it was scary as hell, and then it got it out, [00:50:00] and then it was healed, and then I wasn’t so afraid of anger anymore, and now, I don’t ever, and we’ve talked about this, I don’t see either one of us ever accessing that level of anger again, but if it did, I know I could get through that, 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: When, and I think the other part is both of us learned to become non defensive in our listening where, you could get angry at me and I knew it was healthy for you to get in touch with that anger and to express it to me.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And I just listened to you and at the end said, thank you so much for sharing your anger with me. And that’s it. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And it took a while for us both to be able to do that. But once we did and got skilled at just appreciating the honest expression, allowing the room for that emotion to be there. That was another massive game changer.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: It was huge. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And I’ve never ever felt more connected to you. And we both have talked about this [00:51:00] recently. We started off this conversation really highlighting what was an anxious attachment and avoidant attachment dance. And Caleb what’s your attachment style right now with me? 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: I feel pretty secure.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Yeah, I feel really secure. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And I agree, I’ve never felt more connected to you. And I don’t feel any of that. Old irritation or annoyance or hurt. No. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And, we’ve also done a lot of work to step towards one another and making sure some of those patterns that were hard in the past aren’t there.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: So those promises to one another aren’t empty words. They’re showing up in action and that makes a big difference too. So 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: we did it. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: We did it. We didn’t get flooded and we were able to share a really important story that I’m hoping. You listening has been insightful to perhaps your own relationship, your own journey of [00:52:00] narratives, attachment style, traumas, communication, healing, repair.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: This is all not easy work and John and I are here to guide you guys through it. And in fact, we are hosting a relationship retreat in Costa Rica just about a year from now in September, end of September, 2024. And we were going to do one last year and it wasn’t the right timing, so we’re reinvigorating our intentions.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: This is not just for couples. This is for anyone who wants to be more skilled in relationships, period. And a big focus of this retreat is going to be how to figure out what is your own shit getting in the way of you showing up. Because at the end of the day, that was a big piece, not all of it, but that was a big piece of where you and I were stuck.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And unfortunately we won’t have mushrooms at the retreat. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Not this one, maybe in a few years.[00:53:00] 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Love. Thank you so much. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Thank you. I love you very much. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: I love you so much. And I really we, one of the things that we did when we got back together was we were able to go to a conference up in Vancouver where we got to see a lot of top therapists speak and had the pleasure of connecting with Terry real and I told him, how you had just broken up with me and then you came back and we got back together and Terry looked at you and said it took a lot of courage to break up with her, but it took more courage to come back.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: So thank you for being my partner on this journey. I couldn’t be happier. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Thank you for being mine. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And if this episode spoke to you guys, we would love a rating, a review, a share, some more people can journey forward and become more evolved cavemen and their lives and relationships. And the link for our couples retreat is.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: In the show notes, there’s early bird pricing through the end of 2023. So if you want to jump on that, then [00:54:00] I would take advantage of the opportunity. And I think we should do more of these conversations together. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Yeah. I think we have to do one about the spiritual evolution piece. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: I would love that.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: There’s a lot to share in that. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And as always, thank you for listening. Appreciate it. And if you didn’t like this episode, you don’t have to do a damn thing. That’s it for this one. Take care 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: and be well. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Bye bye.